WATCH IT BURN! no.3New Composite Arts SeriesCANCELLED/ POSTPONED

DUE TO PUBLIC HEALTH CONCERNS, WE FEEL THAT IT IS BEST TO POSTPONE THIS EVENT, SO SUNDAY, MARCH 15, 2020 PERFORMANCES AND THE SCREENING ARE CANCELLED.

EVENT IS POSTPONED UNTIL SUCH TIME AS IT WILL BE SAFE AND VIABLE TO RECONVENE. ADVANCE TICKET PURCHASERS WILL BE CONTACTED FOR REFUNDS OR EXCHANGES.

We did contemplate a simulcast/ FB live stream, but since three of our artists would need to fly in from Switzerland and Halifax for this event, we’ve decided not to risk their health, for starters. We are hoping to present the same lineup in May, June or in the fall… as soon as we can!

Stay in touch, stay sane and keep well, everyone… thank you for your support and understanding!

123 King St. West
Hamilton, ON

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Admission:

$15 advance/ $20 door/ $10 students, seniors, un(der)employed at the door
[Our admission policy: No one will be refused entry for genuine lack of funds]

Music: Chimera

François Houle, clarinet
Norman Adams, cello
Tim Crofts, piano

Get ready for a phenomenal afternoon of improvisation with three of Canada’s best! This acoustic trio, born of a unique Canadian improvisational practice, projects a compelling northern perspective, but with powerfully infused influences from the contemporary classical world.

The aptly named Chimera assembles three of Canada’s most compelling improvisers—pianist Tim Crofts, cellist Norman Adams, and François Houle on clarinet. It makes perfect sense that this partnership was forged at Halifax’s Open Waters Festival, as both the festival and these players have made names for themselves bridging between fiery free playing and compositional lucidity.

Houle has been recognized in Downbeat magazine as a “Talent Deserving Wider Recognition” and was hailed as a “Rising Star” by the magazine’s Readers’ and Critics’ Poll. In addition to extensive international touring, he’s made more than a dozen recordings —several of which have garnered Juno and West Coast Music Award nominations.

Crofts excels in numerous idioms, while remaining anchored in improvisation and contemporary music. He’s a fixture in the Halifax creative music orbit as a pedagogue and player, collaborating with the likes of Jerry Granelli, Sam Shalabi, Lukas Pearse, the Upstream Orchestra, Graham Collier and Gerry Hemingway.

In 2018, Adams left his post of 27 years as Principal Cellist of Symphony Nova Scotia, to devote himself fully to his career as a creative musician and Artistic Director of suddenlyLISTEN. Threading Classical-honed lyricism through a wild array of extended colours, Adams possesses his very own vision of the instrument.

Though it’s far from an outwardly patriotic project, Chimera is united by their common belief in a distinctly Canadian manner of improvising. In addition to it providing their sonic framework, this sensibility stokes their audible collective curiosity. Listeners bear witness as they uncover the various ramifications of this elusive auditory identity.

Sounds & Language: Lee Barwin 3

Lee Barwin 3 at Artword Artbar on Nov 15, 2015 by Ronald Weihs

Lee Barwin 3 are indicative of the new waves in the arts that are making the Hamilton cultural scene one of the most vibrant on the continent. The Lee Barwin 3’s combination of improvisation, texts and textures is like nothing you’ve ever heard.

Poet/ saxophonist/ multimedia artist Gary Barwin has been known for years as the city’s most dynamic and imaginative literary performer … and bestselling novelist, as his Yiddish for Pirates climbed the Canadian bestseller charts.

Ryan Barwin is a multi-instrumentalist, specializing in pedal steel, lap steel, Dobro, Weissenborn, and guitar who hass worked with a diverse selection of Canadian musical artists in genres ranging from country and bluegrass to free jazz including Mike Plume, Chopped Liver, Kelly Prescott, Jesse Labelle, Bobby Dove, Geoff Marshall & the Mail Order Cowboys, Local 164, and many other artists. He also runs Hazy Grove Recording & Production Studio.

David Lee, as well as writing significant books on Paul Bley and Ornette Coleman and the history of Chainsaws, is the author of the Hamilton-based horror novel, The Midnight Games. Lee is a visionary acoustic bassist who has played from coast to coast as well as in the USA and Europe. He teaches writing at WLU.

Film: NY Eye & Ear Control

New York Ear and Eye Control … explores ideas of image-sound relationship and spatial properties. The 1964 short incorporates Snow’s Walking Woman, a silhouetted figure that occurs across film, painting, and sculpture and speaks to the artist’s constant reworking of ideas across mediums and over the course of his career. The notable free-jazz score, performed by such luminaries as Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, and others brought together by the filmmaker, attests to Snow’s significant work as a musician and performer.

AC:The soundtrack for NYE&EC is pretty legendary in the world of free jazz.

MS: Oh yes, it’s by one of the most amazing free jazz groups. It’s Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Roswell Rudd, John Tchicai, Sunny Murray, and Gary Peacock. I had just come across the music of these people, and I was completely knocked out. I had arrived in New York two years before, hoping that I was going to stop playing music and make it as a visual artist, try to get gallery shows and all that, which I did do. But running across all that music that was going on in New York at the time changed my plans! For me, there was an immediate connection between free jazz and New Orleans jazz, in which I had been previously involved, playing Louis Armstrong, Hot Five. But the point that I’d like to make is that, although I was very affected by all these great players, after a while I felt some differences of opinion with what they were doing in their sessions. They [the NYE&EC musicians] all used to play “heads,” you know, a tune of some kind, and then a solo, and then “head” again, and I found myself disagreeing with that. When I had them come to the studio to record the soundtrack, I was careful to tell them that I didn’t want any themes, but as much as possible ensemble playing. They accepted and they performed this way, but, in my opinion, this is one reason for which the music is so great. I mean, they’re great, fantastic musicians, but they were stuck in that business of the statement of theme, alternating with solos. That’s when I started working on my own music, which is what you’ll hear with my trio, CCMC. Hmm, see, this is what happens, everything gets confused in these interviews! — The Austin Chronicle

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“One of the major achievements of the sixties. Mike Snow postulates an eye that stares at surfaces with such intensity… The image itself seems to quiver, finally gives way under the pressure. A deceptive beginning – silent: a flat white form sharply cut to the silhouette of a walking woman…More human images, love-making – a human epic now still ruled by the after image of the Walking Woman. As in no other film yet seen, its alternately soft and granite images lift us toward the year 2000; capturing not events, not objects, but again and again registering a ‘placement’ of consciousness – the subject matter of the future, really. Human energy on film…” — Richard Foreman, New York Film Co-op

This event was made possible with kind support from Canada Council for the Arts.